The Right Way To Speak Analysis

“Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother” by Richard Blanco and “The Right Way to Speak” by Jacqueline Woodson both discuss the lives of children who are being forced to hide a part of who they are. “Queer Theory” is written from a grandmother’s point of view. The grandmother is telling her grandson all of the stereotypical things he can not do because she does not want him to look like he is gay even if he is. “The Right Way to Speak” is written from a daughter’s point of view while she is watching her mother hit her brother with a tree limb. The brother is getting punished for saying a common Southern word, “ain’t”. The mother was born and raised in the South where she was raised to always obey her elders. However, she does not want her children to have anything to do

with the South. “Spare that rod, there's no way else for teacher - Corporal punishment scars young children, and does them no good at all” by Vaishalli Chandra is an article that discusses how punishment does nothing to help children grow. Chandra discusses with psychologist Mythili M. Sarma the effects of punishment on children. “Cultural Stereotypes and Personal Beliefs: Perceptions of Hetereosexual Men, Women and People” by Jes L. Matsick and Terri D. Conley is a research paper about how religion affects people’s knowledge of homesexuality. Both poems and articles discuss the negative impacts that relatives have on their children when they raised them based on stereotypes.

Blanco and Woodson share perspectives about the adversities children have to face when hiding who they are. Chandra’s article discusses how punishment affects children, while Matsick and Conley’s research paper discusses how religion has a direct effect on the stereotypes that people believe in.

Imagery is a common literary element many authors use to get their message across to us in a vivid way. In Richard Blanco’s poem “Queer Theory”, the grandmother is listing the things that the young boy can and can not do, such as “never fly a kite or roller skate, but light/ all the firecrackers you want,/ kill all the lizards you can, cut up worms-/feed them to that cat of yours,” (Blanco 27-30). The grandmother is describing the types of things that she believes only gay people do. She considers flying a kite and roller skating to be a feminine action and warns him to stay away from them. However, she wants him to take part in all of the masculine activities he possibly can. The author uses imagery to describe in detail what exactly the grandmother classifies as

“masculine”. For example, picking worms out of the ground is not as masculine as cutting the worms up and feeding them to the boy’s cat. The boy was also instructed on how to walk. His grandmother wanted him to “stop click-clacking your sandals-/you’re no girl,” (Blanco 33-34). The heel of certain sandals frequently makes a clacking sound when walking on floors without carpet. This is seen mostly in girl’s shoes , but male sandals can also make this noise. The grandson is expected to stop his shoes from making the sound even though that is impossible. The author uses auditory imagery to describe the sound that the sandals are making so that the reader understands why the grandmother wants her grandson to stop making those sounds. In Woodson’s poem “The Right Way to Speak”, the mother is chastising her son with a switch that is “...no longer beautifully weeping at the bottom of the hill./It whirs as my mother whips it/through the air and down/against my brother's legs,” (Woodson 9-12). The author uses imagery to describe how the mother used something that was once a sign of beauty and turned it into a feared punishment. The brother is being punished for using what is considered a “southern” word. The mother retrieved the closest thing she could find and used it as a tool for punishment which changed how the children viewed the tree. The mother continues to strike her son until “...the switch raises dark welts on my brother’s legs...” (Woodson 35). The author uses imagery so the reader has an image of how hard and long the mother has been striking her son. It takes a great quantity of hard hits to make someone’s skin welt up and bruise. The fact that the son said “ain’t” made the mother so angry that she went on to strike him for quite some time. Imagery was used by both authors to present to the audience how both family members went to great deals to make the boys hide who they really are. Both relatives used a form of punishment to chastise the children because of the stereotypes the relatives believed in.
Punishment is something that children all across the world are used to. It is seen as a tool to help children grow and flourish into responsible and sophisticated adults. An article written by Vaishalli Chandra with the help of psychologist Mythili M. Sarma discusses if punishment is really as beneficial to a child’s growth as adults believe it is. Punishment can be anything from time out to spankings. According to Sarma, “punishment could damage the child's self-esteem. A child needs to be exposed to all kinds of situations, but to build a positive disposition, the child should also feel quite secure,” (Chandra and Sarma para. 6). While adults believe that punishment is building character, it is actually hurting their child. Children do need punishment, but it needs to be in a positive manner so they can grow and learn from it. Physical punishment can be one of the most detrimental things to a child’s development. Both relatives in Blanco and Woodson’s poems believe that they are helping their children grow into respectable adults, but according to Sarma, they are actually hurting their children’s own self image. Both poems and Chandra’s article both describe the hardships children have to go through from the people who are supposed to love and care for them the most. Punishment can sometimes be the quick reaction they have when they see their children molding to a stereotype that they believe in.
Stereotypes are a common misconception that people have about a certain person or culture. Blanco used stereotypes throughout his poem to display how the grandmother felt towards gay people. The grandmother wanted her grandson to not “...sit Indian style with your legs crossed-/ you’re no Indian,” (Blanco 31-32). The grandmother is telling her grandson that sitting “Indian” style is only meant for Indians. Since he is not an Indian, he does not need to sit this way. She is using a stereotype about Indians in this sentence, but it is also an action she does not want him to partake in for fear that he will look gay. Many girls sit on the floor in this way. The grandmother is worried that sitting like the girls do will put an assumption in everyone’s head that her grandson wants to be a girl. The grandmother also does not want her grandson to dress a certain way. When he wants to get his ear pierced, she tells him, “What? No, you can’t pierce your ear./left or right side-/I don’t care-/you will not look like a goddamn queer,” (Blanco 66-69). In history, it is believed that men had only their right ear pierced to show that they were gay. The grandson asked his grandmother if he could have his ear pierced and he explained to her this common idea. She does not care which ear it is that gay men get pierced. She does not want her grandson to have any type of piercing. She believes that an ear piercing will make her grandson look like he was gay. In Woodson’s poem, the author uses irony and stereotypes to show how the mother feels about people from the South. The children are not allowed to say “...ma’am-just yes, with eyes/meeting eyes enough/to show respect,” (Woodson 23-25). In the south, ma’am and sir are common terms used when talking to someone who deserves your respect, especially your elders. From my own experience, I have learned that a lot of people who were not raised in the south see those terms as words you only use when talking to someone who is much older than you. This is not the case in the South. If someone deserves your respect, despite age, ma’am and sir are the terms you use when directing that person. The mother was born in the south, so she understands how mandatory it is to use these terms when speaking to people. She did not enjoy her upraising and she does not want her children to have to talk and act the way she did. This is very ironic because she did not like being forced to talk and act a certain way, but she is forcing her children to not say certain words. The mother believes that since her children “...are from the North, our mother says./You know the right way to speak,” (Woodson 33-34). The mother is saying that people in the South are uneducated and do not know how to speak. This is a very big stereotype that people from the South have to deal with. They use very loose terms, such as “ain’t” and “gonna”. This does not mean that a person is uneducated or does not know how to communicate in a formal manner. This is a cultural norm for Southern people. This is also very ironic because some of the top universities, such as Duke, are located in the South. Blanco and Woodson’s poems both use stereotypes to show the ideas that older generations have about certain aspects that younger generations are more open to.
A person’s belief in stereotypes is usually far more embedded than people believe. Stereotypes do not come about because someone one day decided to just start believing that way about a certain race or sexuality. These beliefs usually come from how a person was raised. A research article written by Jes L. Matsick and Terri D. Conley discusses how personal beliefs have a direct effect on the stereotypes that a person believes in. According to Matsick and Conley, “the personal beliefs of high-prejudiced participants strongly overlapped with their knowledge of stereotypes, whereas the personal beliefs of low-prejudiced participants diverged from their knowledge of stereotypes,” (Conley and Matsick 114). If someone is highly prejudiced against any group, sex, or race, they are receiving their knowledge about those people from their own personal beliefs. These beliefs usually are developed from religious organizations. Sometimes people that stereotype are not prejudiced at all. Some people stereotype because of the actions they have seen other members of a group partake in. They are not technically prejudiced against those groups, but they do not agree with the ideas they have.
Both poems and articles opened my eyes to the things that I have been seeing since I was little. I am not a part of the LGBTQ community, but I have many friends that are and Blanco’s poem really showed me the difficulties that my friends have to go through. I personally connect with Woodson’s poem. Being from the South, I understand the stereotypes that Southerners have to deal with. Ridiculou Matsick and Conley opened my mind to the fact that personal beliefs have a direct effect on the stereotypes that people believe. I have lived in the South my entire life and I have noticed the effects religion has on people. But something else I have noticed is that as new generations are born, people are becoming less dependent on religion. My grandma and mom were both raised in a church, but when I was born, my parents never forced religion onto me. I do not personally relate with Chandra’s article, but it was more of a realization to me about what my future entails. Parents believe that punishment is important in their child’s growth and development, but it is actually doing more harm for them. When I become a parent, I hope that this article stays in my mind when my child does something that I may think is wrong. Of course, I still believe that some forms of punishment should be done. But if my son decides he wants to play with dolls or my daughter decides she wants to play football, I hope that I will not be one of those parents that forces gender roles onto her children or punishes them for breaking those roles. I just want to love them unconditionally through whatever they choose to do with their lives.